Cat food for dubia?
- Thread starter Odin
- Start date
Solid Snake
Avid Member
Hello!
Welcome to CF!
The answer would be no, as most cat food contains animal proteins. Animal protein is bad for your chameleon.
Welcome to CF!
The answer would be no, as most cat food contains animal proteins. Animal protein is bad for your chameleon.
Texas Panther Man
New Member
NO cat & dog food is too high in protein. It will cause a build up of uric acid in your dubia feeders. Seems that unlike crickets dubia roaches seem to be unable to excrete excess uric acid. This will then be passed on to your cham when they are fed off. This can & will cause Gout in chameleons.
I actually just read an article by Allen Repashy and he was saying you want to shoot for about 14% or even a little lower percentage of protein in your roach gutload. Thats a safe amount of protein to feed the roaches. He even commented that the early samples of his bug burger gutload had caused some of the beta testers to suffer loses in their dubia colonies due to excessive protein in the early bug burger recipe.
I use the same cricket crack gutload along with fruits & veggies for my roaches that I do for my crickets. Ive found the roaches really prefer the fruits and veggies to the gutload anyway. So I use more fresh fruits & veggies than anything for them now.
I actually just read an article by Allen Repashy and he was saying you want to shoot for about 14% or even a little lower percentage of protein in your roach gutload. Thats a safe amount of protein to feed the roaches. He even commented that the early samples of his bug burger gutload had caused some of the beta testers to suffer loses in their dubia colonies due to excessive protein in the early bug burger recipe.
I use the same cricket crack gutload along with fruits & veggies for my roaches that I do for my crickets. Ive found the roaches really prefer the fruits and veggies to the gutload anyway. So I use more fresh fruits & veggies than anything for them now.
Odin
New Member
Hi and thanks
Im starting a colony or trying to. I have read that the protein,oranges and heat is the way to go. I did also read that it is bad for the cham and some ppl take out some roaches and put them in a seprate tank without catfood for a few days do you know if this would work or how long it would take for the protien to leave the roaches?
Im starting a colony or trying to. I have read that the protein,oranges and heat is the way to go. I did also read that it is bad for the cham and some ppl take out some roaches and put them in a seprate tank without catfood for a few days do you know if this would work or how long it would take for the protien to leave the roaches?
lslcronk
New Member
I believe you can feed High Protein to your breeders ONLY. You would have to have a seperate breeding colony and feeder colony. High protein as mentioned, is not good for your chameleon (great for roaches for breeding, but will cause a serious condition called Gout in your cham). I feed all my dubia cricket crack and fresh veggies, oranges for "water" and yes, they need a heat source (some have done well without heat...but all my dubia started dying without it) and my colony is doing really well.
Bottom line: Do NOT gutload any bugs you are feeding directly to your cham with high protein foods. Look up Gout to get more info. Good luck with the dubia!
Bottom line: Do NOT gutload any bugs you are feeding directly to your cham with high protein foods. Look up Gout to get more info. Good luck with the dubia!
Texas Panther Man
New Member
To be safe I wouldnt feed the adult breeders off to my chams if I did that. I would remove the newborn nymphs as soon as possible also.
I feed very little protein and I started with 250 adults. I dont even know how many I have now? Way more than I will ever need prob. I even cut back during the summer months and removed my heat mat. They still bred like, well roaches. So if your only feeding a few chams I wouldnt worry you'll have more roaches than you can ever use within 6 mos.
Your not trying to breed 10's of thousands for sale as feeders your just trying to feed a few chams. Big difference in being a roach breeder and just trying to add diversity to your feeding.
Texas Panther Man
New Member
Contact forum member SSimsswiss. Real name Steve Sims. He is the maker of crick crack. He can hook you with the best gutload out there Imo.
Last edited:
sandrachameleon
Chameleon Enthusiast
too much protein, as others have mentioned
here's what I feed mine:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/575-january-2012-dry-gutload-recipe.html
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition-gutloading.html
